I’ve got to give the wolves credit, they seem to have better trail etiquette than some people. In the photo above, I believe there were three wolves but the fat bikes rode over one set of tracks.
Goat Creek at 2.6K
Goat Creek had a bit of tree debris at the beginning but not enough to annoy me. The home stretch on Spray River West got progressively worse as I approached Banff, and the final 2K was a carpet of pine needles. By that time, I had worn off my wax and was able to skate the final 2K. 17 of the 19K were quite enjoyable.
Goat Creek at 7.5K
It’s difficult to go anywhere right now without encountering tree debris on the trails. Trust Chuck to find one, of course.
It looks like our troubles will be over, however, starting on Saturday with the big snowfall which is on the way. The Snow Forecast for Banff is predicting 14 cm(Update Feb 2: This has increased to 51 cm!). The Weather Network is somewhere around 20 cm. Ventusky predicts 12 cm.
Spray River at 9K
The best part of today’s trip was the middle portion, from about 4K – 14K with good tracks and very little tree debris. Goat Creek received the 2-3 cm of snow which fell on Sunday night. On the 2k from Goat Creek bridge to the Spray River bridge, only one skier had been over the fresh snow.
Wolf tracks
There didn’t seem to be as much new snow on the Banff end, and I imagine that’s partly why the tree debris was so bad.
I only saw three rocks on the 100-metre descent to the Goat Creek bridge, and none on the descent to the Spray River bridge at 9K.
I encountered the wolf tracks after crossing the Spray River bridge at 9K, and followed them all the way to the East-West junction at 13.3K. I’m not an expert at identifying tracks, so I hope Barb Banff is reading this and can comment on them.
Lake O’Hara Lodge opens this weekend, so I’m guessing the Lake O’Hara fire road will be trackset tomorrow. Update Feb 2 @ 11 a.m: Just received word that it is indeed going to be trackset today.
OMG, even if you get a bit of what the 6 day snow forecast shows! Wow.
Thought the same thing when seeing wolf tracks in PLPP a week ago, smarter than a snowshoer despite the pack mentality. But maybe it’s more like having fat ski back country gear, their paws are too big for the tracks and feels uncomfortable. But they will walk in back country ski tracks when no other grooming/compaction is available, hence the ski bans in areas of jasper to save the caribou from predation.
looks like wolf to me.
txs. i’m ski touring in BC.
praying for snow here too!
My friend Diane and I skied from Castle Mtn Lookout parking lot almost to Protection Mtn campground. Aside from the first 15 min of light debris on the trail, the rest of the trail was very good. Watch out for the three rocks sticking out on the track! Well worth doing considering the abundance of needle debris on many trails!